So far I can say nothing definite about the
date.[1] I
think you will have time enough to go to Liège, if you
can return on Sunday, or if you don’t take a return ticket
and don’t go back to Paris (probably the best thing will
be to take a 45–day circular ticket, Paris—Liege, etc.—
Paris, right away). It’s hardly possible before Monday,
although, I repeat, I’m not sure. Today, April 5, was fixed
as the latest date for departure from St. Petersburg—ergo
it is hardly likely before Monday. So far no one has arrived.
On Friday, two will be setting off from here—they may
call at your town, but strictly incognito.

Have you seen Plekhanov’s
Dnevnik[2]? What a
melancholy tone of utter resignation! I am sorry for the old man,
he’s angry for no good reason, but what a lovely brain....

Our line with the delegates must be strictly peaceable:
we “have nothing to lose, but stand to win everything (if
there’s a victory)”; for our opponents it’s the other way
round. You will, of course, see this yourself from the B.M.C.
and C.C.
leaflet,[3] and also from No. 13 (Question of
Organisation).[4]

Hurry, hurry, hurry with the report of the Committee of
the Organisation
Abroad,[5]the list of members and all the
documents.

Notes

[1]A reference to the opening of the Third Party Congress. Lenin
wrote to P. A. Krasikov on Wednesday, April 5, expecting it, to
open not earlier than Monday (April 10). However, the Congress
opened only on April 25. C.C. members who were on the
Organising Committee for the convocation of the Congress made a final
effort to reach agreement with the Party Council (Plekhanov,
Axelrod and Martov), to have them recognise the C.C. decision
on the convocation of the Congress and approve the work done
by the O.C. The talks dragged out until the arrival of the
delegates from Russia in Geneva and the departure of the Bolsheviks
for London.

[2]Dnevnik Sotsial-Demokrata (Diary of a Social-Democrat)—a
non-periodical published at long intervals by G. V. Plekhanov in
Geneva from March 1905 to April 1912. There were 16 issues in all.
Its publication was resumed in Petrograd in 1916, but only one
issue appeared.

[3]A reference to the joint appeal to the Party on behalf of the C.C.
and the Bureau of Majority Committees (B.M.C.) of March 12,
1905, setting the task of the Congress: to work out general Party
tactics and establish organisational unity. The appeal listed the
authorised committees and said that the C.C. and the B.M.C.
were setting up an Organising Committee for the convocation
of the Congress. The appeal appeared in Vperyod No. 13, on April
5 (March 23), 1905.

[4]The newspaper Vperyod No. 13 carried a draft report of the Bureau
of Majority Committees to the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
under the title “Question of Organisation ” containing draft changes
in the Party’s Rules (prepared by “Ivanov”—A. A.
Bogdanov).

[5]A reference to a report prepared by P. A. Krasikov, who was
nominated a delegate to the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
from the Committee of the Organisation Abroad. The Committee
headed Bolshevik groups abroad which had broken with the
League Abroad, when it fell under Menshevik control after its
Second Congress.